The only way to know is to listen to them, your ears will tell you the truth.

I don't know what "reflections"  in a cable might mean, considering the problems we are trying to chase away are created by waveforms, making everything look like a reflection.
But to me, it comes down to Steve's previous statement regarding shorter cables being available. There's not really a difference, so he's not offering them.

Put another way, maybe there might be a difference using a shorter cable, but is there enough of a difference to "make a difference?"

First... vague, but I think digital cables can be different than ICs. And that they can be better or worse design for longer or shorter runs. I do seem to recall hearing this longer cable theory with USB... but I have not explored it. That said, remember when Curious cables got a lift from making an 8" USB cable for a short connector between a USB Regen and DAC??? Pretty popular!

So I guess it all depends on design and materials like anything else in audio... and then if there is an issue AB'ing short and long of the same design, I agree, a choice...Is a long cable better enough to outway a wish for shorter cables?

As to power cables, seems some pretty serious designers talk about the power cable more as a "filter," potentially making longer better to a point. And I can imagine this conceptually... All my power cables are similar in length, and sound pretty different with careful listening... all great, but different. So I don't consider them an extension of my wall power wires. Rather I think that wall wire energy is being refined by quality cable's parts and design, and therefore refining the power of all components the power cables interact with. I have not directly checked this length thing using the same design though for AB, in part because I like 4.5-5 foot power cables that allow flexibility for rolling them into multiple uses in my system.

But I guess good sounding shorter power cables can happen, again, depending on parts and design... Even if the longer-is-better thing applies in general, I would think some experiments could be done to offer similar "filtering" in a shorter length? Maybe this has already been done by good cable makers. Maybe even some of these Chinese made, relatively higher conglomerate gauge UPOCC copper cables with heavy braiding could do "more" in a shortish run??? ... just speculating. 

I had an old MAC power cable that was probably three feet. Braided pretty tightly for those big wires, I think they may have been military large gauge silver plated teflon... I had made better sounding cables (to me) so it was sitting around. And a friend who was a cop was having troubles with people dissing him after the bad abuses from some cops going around. I felt for him, and decided to offer some thanks for what I know is righteous work from him and see if I could make him a really nice cable with these baseline wires. I added nice Neotech ends to it, and did some filter work, and it sounded really quite good to me.... and great to the guy I gave it to who had been using a more normal length older Decware cable of similar design... so ends and filtering can definitely matter. But just saying, this was a pretty short cable and was pretty complete and quite good sounding.

I guess that with digital, power or signal cables, how the length effects a cable or wire sound, has loads to do with the wires, geometry, and shielding used (if shielding is used).... more transparent parts and designs able to be longer with little or less sacrifice to a point because the cables move the signal or power with more clarity and ease.

On the other hand, I have avoided "normal" tinned copper shields. Have not explored it since, but years ago, on some ICs I was making, I tried an oversized tinned copper shield, and I just did not like the sound, dulling fine detail and air compared to no shield.

But I think this was using some really good UPOCC silver signal wires and nice Eichmann ends, so I was starting with extra resolving/revealing cables that did not appear to kill much fine detail without the shield. I wonder, had I been working with a little less nice cables that already mask more of the very fine information and space, I may not have noticed the shield as much???

So I started exploring geometry more to solve noise. And if geometry can't fix the noise issue (very rare here), the one time that happened for me, I used really good copper litz woven hollow, like a shield, in oversized Neotech "cotton" wire. I suspect oversized good quality silver or copper ready made could be good too, but have not tried it, in part because I don't seem to need shields the way my ICs are made.

A wire run in my amp that needed shielding is where I came up with the idea to adapt the Neotech wire, having it on hand. By attaching the signal wire to the plastic insert inside the woven litz tube, and pulling the plastic strip out the other end, this threads the signal wire into the Litz "tube" while relaxing the "cable" rigidity, making it easier to use. This left air around a lot of the signal wire, so theoretically less interaction with the shield. In this one case, this shield transparently worked, not noticing real problems with the internal UPOCC silver signal wire's abilities with fine detail being compromised by shield interaction.

So I am thinking that everything matters in a very resolving system in particular, and if a cable is shielded, and not done artfully, I find it will compromise the sound some. And if the signal wires/dielectric are not pretty top quality, they too will compromise the flow and resolution some... Also the ends qualities, and solder where used! Combined, just these can add up. And this does not even consider Tekflex dielectric potential, or how careful geometry and damping can do a lot to tune in the beauty, while tuning noise/grunge out. And if some of these, or all are just a little compromised each, and in similar ways, a cable might sound pretty nicely revealing and balanced.... but not in comparison with more complete revelation from a cable with less compromises... Once again, then it is a choice.

But to me, seeking to restore fine detail and space present on recordings, to my system/room, these compromises can potentially wipe out a fair bit of finer information that can make music more alive .... that is if this fine information potential is there from a good room, and clean/stable power, resolving source, cables, etc , etc, on to resolving speakers and setup.

Lots of way to make cables, but these are observations from my experiments. And with so many variables, seems there are a lot of partial "facts" rolling around that may be real in one case, and less real in another. Then there are more tried and true truths... like UPOCC wire and similar. Labyrinth this human mind!

I am guessing the cables Steve tested were ICs? and may have had a lot of the check boxes checked for higher resolution, speed, and transparency, making shorter and longer cables sonically close enough to not be an issue.

But I can imagine if a lot of the check boxes are not checked, longer could well be worse sounding with signal cables anyway.

I agree, ET and I feel the same. Win, win. My comment was meant to follow the same thinking.
Shortening every cable is good, if for no other reason than as Burge said, keeping dust in check.

I started to post about studios using 4" or 1' cables trying to beat back the tangles. Felt like it would not add, but the notion is the same for some of us.

Quote:


So running the network for a mid-major research university was my day job for several years and we wouldn't buy fiber jumpers shorter than 2' because reflections ("launch loss" in the business) is a real problem. That's actually where I learned that shorter isn't always better for cables. But truthfully the details of the optics and wavelengths and quality of the fiber all matter a lot so it is hard to predict at what point there are measurable/noticeable impacts, we just went with 2' because then we didn't have to think about it. We used a lot of velcro to manage the tangles.

USB and I2S have gotten so good, especially with really good DACs, I guess optical is almost dead to me but not quite... I still use Toslink to connect my DVD player to my movie DAC because that is a digital out you can find on a lot of DVD players, and this DAC has Toslink in. The cable I use was a pretty good sounding one too from back when I used optical more. The sound for movies is good, but not as good in completeness and refinement as the audio side. And I have not dug in to trying to solve this, the sound apparently good enough for movies so far for me not to prioritize making it better over continued efforts on the music side. I guess I better check out the Wyred4Sound upscaler!

Thanks for the links Lon, I searched wyred4sound upscaler and could not find anything... so thanks for the Remedy!

Thanks, CAJ.
That's where my mind was going in order to try to understand reflections in cabling.
2' seems short enough.
Velcro is king!

I know ZERO about streamers really as I only stream via AppleTV for video. (In both systems I have one I use this in between DVR or cable box and DAC, and it improves the sound of video material and the cable music services.) This device has an Optical and a Coaxial (RCA) input and an Optical and Coaxial (RCA) as well as a BNC output so it can be used between a digital source with either or both of those outputs and a DAC with any of these inputs. It reclocks the input, upscales it to 24/96 if necessary, and in the process it claims to remove a lot of jitter and it sure sounds that way to me.

https://wyred4sound.com/products/digital-converters/remedy-reclocker